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Maya came under fire for her offensive tweets about ‘dark skin bitches’ (Picture: REX)

Maya Jama reveals she used to be ‘embarrassed’ by her African background in the wake of the colourism debate that was sparked by her unearthed tweets about ‘dark skin bitches.’

The BBC presenter has spoken about the controversy for the first time since she issued her apologies for the remarks in her now deleted posts on Twitter. She also admitted that she stayed away from social media during the backlash to look after her mental health.

In April 2012, at the age of 17-year-old, she tweeted: ‘”Dark skin bitches shaving their head expecting to look like Amber Rose, when really they end up looking like Micheal Jordan.” Looooooooool (sic).’

Maya has opened up about her own insecurities regarding her heritage (Picture: Getty)

Now, a month after the mass outrage, the Cannonball presenter has opened up about her own insecurities regarding her ethnicity.

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While appearing as a guest on the Receipts Podcast, the TV personality who is half Swedish and half Somali, admitted that she used to lie about her background to avoid abuse from other children.

In the episode aired on Wednesday, she said: ‘There were these boys and they were so horrible to me when they found out that I was Somali.’

Maya, who is dating rapper Stormzy, confessed that at around the ages of 11 and 12 she used to tell her classmates that she was European and Carribean to stop them from finding out the truth about her East African heritage.

‘When they asked me where I’m from I used to be like “yeah I’m Spanish and Jamaican” or something like that – and just made a whole completely new background because I didn’t want people to judge me from where I was from,’ she said.

She used the memory to explain and reinforce that she understood why there was a mass outrage over her past comments.

Maya added: ‘So I get it, it’s not the same thing, but I understand the feeling of people being rude and taking the piss out of where you are from. Or your race or your skin colour. When it’s something you can’t change.’

As the podcast panel spoke about colourism and the effects it has on darker women Maya, who is now a proud Somali, chipped in.

She added: ‘I understand it [colourism] as much as I can, of course, I’m not a dark skin black woman but from what I can understand is that it is years and year of abuse feeling like you are less than.’

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The presenter, who became the youngest presenter to host the Mobo awards last year, also revealed that after apologising for the second time she stayed off social media and avoided the direct backlash to look after her mental health.

‘For my own mental health I don’t want to be sat there scrolling through people sending me abuse and death threats over something that I am not today,’ she said explaining that while things cooled down she had flown over to Italy to begin filming for a new TV show.

Maya admits that her comments were ‘ignorant.’ (Picture: REX)

Maya, who has not mentioned the headline-making outrage since her last apology on 20 April, also explained to the podcast hosts – Tolly, Milena and Audrey – that she agreed to appear on their show so that people could hear her ‘human voice’ as she set the record straight on her thoughts on colourism.

Considering her first apology was not well received and branded as ‘weak’, Maya said: ‘I have wanted to speak about this as a human and not just some notes on Twitter or some statement or apology.

‘I have wanted to have my voice on something where I can speak because where something like this does happen, if you release something like that, people will just pick it apart either way. But if you get a chance to speak as a person and you can hear where I came from.’

Speaking of her ‘uneducated’ and offensive tweets she admitted she did not realise the impact it would have.

‘I was definitely an ignorant person that was trying to make people laugh and not understanding the seriousness of a joke like that,’ she said.

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